Image Courtesy of Amazon.com
Director :
Richard Linklater
Cast :
Billy Bob Thornton……….Buttermaker
Greg Kinnear……….Bullock
Sammi Kraft……….Amanda Whurlitzer
Ridge Canipe……….Toby Whitewood
Timmy Deters……….Tanner
Carter Jenkins……….Joey Bullock
Brandon Craggs …. Engelberg
Jeff Davies……….Kelly Leak
Seth Adkins……….Mean Yankee
Tyler Patrick Jones……….Timothy Lupus
Jeffrey Tedmori………Garo
Troy Gentile……….Matthew Hooper
Emmanuel Estrada……….Miguel Agilar
Carlos Estrada……….Jose Agilar
The Movie
Nearly 20 years after The Bad News Bears Go To Japan completed the Bad News Bears trilogy, Billy Bob Thornton would take a turn in the coach’s seat for Bad News Bears, a remake of the first film in the trilogy. While the film opened up to good reviews, it barely made more than the original did in 1976 on its way to DVD.
Thornton steps into the role formerly occupied by Walter Matthau as Buttermaker, a washed up minor leaguer being paid to coach a group of underachievers. Buttermaker is less than enthused about his team until the coach of an opposing team, Bullock (Greg Kinnear), riles up Buttermaker’s sense of winning. Realizing he needs some actual talent on his team, he recruits the a with a million dollar arm in Amanda Whurlitzer (Sammi Kraft) as well as local hooligan Kelly Leak (Jeff Davies). With the influx of talent and Buttermaker’s knowledge of the game, the Bears follow your typical underdog path to success, except with a lot more vulgarity.
Bad News Bears accepts the fact that in this Eric Cartman-fueled world that kids using the seven dirty words isn’t shocking or creative anymore. What made the original unique was that the profanity was something unheard; it’s now pretty commonplace outside of Disney films. The kids still use bad language but the temptation to put on a clinic in childhood profanity was thankfully avoided. It’s rather refreshing, and it’s also refreshing the way Richard Linklater portrays Coach Buttermaker.
Thornton doesn’t try and ape the performance of Matthau, he takes two characters of his more famous characters (Willy from Bad Santa and Coach Gaines from Friday Night Lights) and meshes them into a wonderful character. It doesn’t hurt that he single-handedly carries the film.
It is the children that take a lot of the wind out of the sails of this story. They are a motley crew of sorts that is blended into a well oiled machine by their coach and the actual baseball supports it. Thornton’s time in the minor leagues certainly helps him look the part of a washed-up baseball player, but the progress of the team in how they play the game is fun to watch. This isn’t an overnight shift form being misfits to being an actual fundamentally sound baseball; it’s a gradual development that makes the story work better. But the team is bland and not very well developed; they are one-note adjectives and don’t have the sort of connection their 1976 counterparts did. There is a subplot in the film that is missing that might have developed the team and some of its members that is missing that could have developed them more.
Bad News Bears may have been lost in the summer shuffle, but it is faithful to the originals vision in being a solid comedy about kids bucking the system and succeeding. It is a good film and has more than enough laughs to satisfy the viewer.
Score : 7.5 / 10
The Video
Presented in a widescreen format with a 1.85:1 aspect ratio, Bad News Bears is a great transfer from the theatre to the small screen. There is a great color selection and display, as there are isn’t any muted or otherwise downplayed visuals in the DVD version.
The Audio
Presented in a Dolby Digital sound, the film sounds wonderful. It is mainly dialogue based but the events of the game come through loud and clear as well.
The Extras
At bat with the Bears is a featurette that follows how they decided to remake the film and the challenges of updating it for a new generation. With Linklater, Thornton and several other principles involved, it’s a rather interesting look at how they were able to make the film work differently than before. Running around 11 minutes, they delve into a lot of how they adapted a well-known story and story type into a new era.
Writing the Bad News Bears focuses on how they were able to adapt the script and story from 1976. Calling it more of a “remix” rather than a true remake due to the liberal borrowing from the original script, it’s interesting to see Ficarra and Requa talk about how they liked the original characters and wanted to shift them to a modern reality as some of the characters were adapted from their original time period to a modern reality is rather interesting and runs around nine minutes.
Scouting for the big leagues follows the casting of the film and why they casted each person for their roles. It runs around 10 minutes and is rather interesting as they talk about why each person was chosen for their role, complete with snippets from their screen tests.
Spring Training is a featurette that follows the actual baseball of the film with the technical advisors and Linklater discussing how they were able to work with the kids to get them up to speed in terms of baseball ability and runs around five minutes.
Five Deleted scenes show some extraneous material that really wasn’t needed for the film’s story. Running a combined 9 minutes, they don’t add much to the film or contain any sort of moment that would’ve made the film any better. It does have a pretty interesting scene between Thornton and one of the kids as they talk about movies while throwing the ball around as well as having commentary from Linklater, Ficarra and Requa.
Outtakes are the usual assortments of outtakes and flubbed lines that are humorous on occasion but are generally worth a quick glance and that’s about it.
Video baseball cards are brief background of the principle members of the cast set up like a video baseball card on a MLB video.
Commentary by Richard Linklater and Co-Screenplay Writers Glenn Ficarra and John Requa
Theatrical trailer
Score : 7.5 / 10
